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I’ve spent about half of my life in school; 12 years from elementary through high school, four years in college, three years in grad school when I still wanted to go into art history, seven years of dental school, and a few more years of schooling here and there. After all that time, to me, […]

Almost every day I meet someone who says “I’d love to have Invisalign®, but my dentist said I didn’t qualify” or “My friend had Invisalign and said it doesn’t work.” And every time I get to tell them that EVERYONE can choose Invisalign for their orthodontic treatment if that is what they prefer. So why

For some people, the thought of 1-2 years in braces sounds like serving time in teeth prison!  If that is you, the great news is that we now have new and better options such as Invisalign. Follow Carroll Orthodontics: For those who don’t know much about Invisalign, here is the “cut to the chase” version. Invisalign is

Happy New Year! I hope 2017 is off to a great start for everyone. I know these first weeks have been very exciting for me. As of this month, I am now a published author, and my book, Improve Your Smile, Transform Your Life: A Guide to Orthodontics for Adults, is now available. Getting my book

Did you know that you can straighten your teeth invisibly with no aligners to remove or anything covering up your smile? It’s true with lingual braces – the best kept secret in orthodontics. Getting a better smile can be your secret with braces that are hidden on the back of your teeth (best known as lingual braces

Several years ago, a friend of mine from England came to visit during Thanksgiving. I went up to meet her in Chicago, and as we drove through the city, you could see that practically every store was closed for the holiday. Of course, they don’t have Thanksgiving in Great Britain, so she was a bit

What if smiling, if even you weren’t happy, could make you feel better?  For psychologists, this is called the “facial feedback” hypothesis [1].  To test whether smiling can make you feel happier, researchers conducted an experiment where the participants were asked to hold a pencil in their mouths while watching a series of positive and

“SOMETIMES YOUR JOY IS THE SOURCE OF YOUR SMILE, BUT SOMETIMES YOUR SMILE CAN BE THE SOURCE OF YOUR JOY.” – THICH NHAT HANH If an authentic (Duchenne) smile is caused by feeling happiness and joy, can smiling alone create these same good emotions in the brain? Paul Ekman joined with Richard Davidson, one of the world’s experts on the

The smile of a baby is one of the most coveted smiles. We will make ridiculous faces and noises, dance, sing, or stand on our heads to get a baby to smile. And when the baby smiles, we are absolutely sure that it is an true reflection of how likeable we are and how smart

So when you break it down to its basic elements, what is a smile? In technical terms, a smile is caused by the firing of cranial nerve VII which then activates the zygomaticus major (cheek raising) and orbicularis oculi (eye crinkling) muscles. There are different types of smiles, each representing different points on the emotional